I just watched this game for the first time about a week ago. A player had his skull fractured and the game went on. A game winning kick was made from an amazing distance. I have never seen anything like this before, brutal, but at the end the opposing teams embraced each other, unbelieveable... snowbound
LOL... ya just gotta love that. AND.... only occassionally a "small" winger may wear a soft padded skull helmet [smaller and lighter than the boxers in the olympics]..... You may only see like 1 guy wearing one of those in 10 matches. No other padding, just shorts, sock, boots, jerseys. So Snowbound, did you like the tackling and "big hits" as they call it... when someone is running at like 20-30 Kmh and runs into a 'brick wall' of an front row forward and stopped literally dead in his tracks... to zero. Gotta feel for those guys. Some of the tackles are actually sickening to watch, especially an illegal head high [strictly illegal, fractured necks from that] and the amazing thing, they then jump up and want to play on or fight. Also, very little time out, full action virtually for the 80 minutes of play + injury time. I had to go photograph some final local footy match here the other day, and we've had little rain in the last few months so the ground was as hard as, and the Ambo's [paramedics to you] carried off three players to hospital. Broken ankle, broken leg, from tackles and hitting the hard ground. Now that is unusual and not the norm. TAS... Oh.. if you get a chance, and it's being televised more now [Rugby League that is] watch a 'State of Origin' game. Now that's hard, fast and exciting. Running, tackling non-stop for 40 minutes each way. It's between 2 states, Queensland v's New South Wales. Players who normally are mates with players because they may play on the same team, are then combatants as they switch alliances to their State and play for them. edit: To clarify. There are three codes of football here. Rubgy League [which is more than likely what ou saw, played mainly in Commonwealth countries, oz, uk, ireland, nz, etc. etc.] It's the toughest. Hard game, hard men. NO Offensive/Defensive play as in GridIron. Just 15 players per side, only 13 on field at any given time. Rugby Union [similar, but not as physical in the 'hits'.. still very daunting to the average person]. Australian Rules Football. [This is a completely different game, bit like soccer, but they handle the ball and run with it, but cannot run more than so many steps without having to handpass the ball OR keep bouncing the ball as they run evey so many steps... not dribble as in basketball.... the game there is mainly a running/kicking game.. to score, all points are done by kicking the ball thru goal posts. It's a high scoring game, as in like basketball points]
When I had my satelite dish I watched it all of the time. I get a kick out of the guy at the goal post's in the white suit calling the goals.
ahhh bigc... that's Aussie Rules... that is good to watch, fast and full on all the time. Those guys are big men and very rarely get into a fight, as strict rules will force them to be 'sinbinned' or usually, match suspensions for 2-5 games, which is a lot of money to lose by not playing matches. I am unsure of which game snowbound saw, when he said an amazing kick, I am inclined to believe it was Aussie Rules. Rugby League.. ever get a chance to watch one of those, then do so. ouchies Cheers, TAS
LOL>.. replying same time... yep, it was Aussie Rules you watched then, with the "Doctors" calling the goals... and YEP... on occassion they've taken a 'hit', but never serious injuries... TAS
It's heavy footy season now.. all drawing to the Grand Finals in like about a month-6 weeks. We have Friday Night Footy [Rugby League], Saturday Afternoon Footy [Aussie Rules], Saturday Night Footy [Rugby League/Aussie Rules], Sunday Afternoon Footy [Rugby League] all on different channels.... hard pressed to find 'movie space'..LOL.... some start at 6.30 p.m. others around 10-11.00 p.m. for the night time ones. TV is full of it at the moment. ROFL.. much to the massive annoyance of many wives. TAS
Ah OZ footie! Does remind me of my trip downunder some 3 years ago; talking about "the uninformed".... well, I'm enbarrased to admit (being the sportsfreak I am...) I was, and still am a little. During my visit to Sydney in 2001 I just bought a ticket and went to see a Swans game at the cricket ground (to make things even more confusing for a 'newbie' it was played at the cricketground... ) I believe it was Sydney Swans vs. Western Bulldogs. To blend in I bought myself a red Swans hat and sat down. I didn't know **** about the rules or anything, hahaha. First the pitch: It was egg-shaped, and I couldn't figure out -apart from the 2 obvious (cause BIG) goals- what the purpose of the game was. But after the 1st quarter I had shaken off all my shyness and got in conversation with a real OZ; who explained the basics to me (after first being totally surprised that a foreigner fro across the globe had any interest in their sport ) I had a great afternoon! Despite the fact that the Swans lost....it wasn't a very good season I later discovered. Other thing I noticed -apart from the great toughness of the game itself- was the crowds' behaviour; totally different from what I was used to in Europe in teamsport supporting: The first 2 or 3 quarters they just gather together and meet, and start eating their snacks and drinking their soda's; saying hi to friends etc, there's hardly any attention for what's happening on the pitch!!! (Un-imaginable to me) At the last quarter they finally had their eyes on the players and the game, and were warmed up; finally they started some yelling. Very strange experience for a diehard soccerfan like me.... But all in all: I like it. regards, slam P.S. How are the Swans doing this year?
